


be it ever so humble

by garden of succulents (staranise)



Series: garden of succulents [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Horticulture, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 06:50:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10211945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staranise/pseuds/garden%20of%20succulents
Summary: The couple Kent slept with at the Mojave Midsummer Music Festival invite him back to their place.





	

Luis and his girlfriend lived in a trailer in the middle of nowhere in the desert, the kind of nowhere where other human habitation was a faint shimmer on the horizon, where driving directions included unironic use of “turn left at the twisty tree”.  It was flat desert dotted with sagebrush, the kind of nowhere and nothing that reminded you why people felt okay dropping nukes here.

When they’d moved out, Luis tells him, it had been a trailer in the middle of nowhere, a single tree, and a well.  The well had been the major selling point for them.  Later in the year it had become a trailer, a tree, a well, and a corrugated tin roof propped up on two posts in the back; the year after it was a trailer, a tree, a well, a corrugated tin roof porch, and a chicken coop.

They’ve been here almost five years (“Jesus Christ,” Luis swears when he realizes it) and Kent suspects their absentee landlord would have difficulty recognizing it anymore.  

The trailer’s metal siding has been painted blue and green, with whorls of orange dots, and the footprint of the house’s inhabitants has roughly doubled.  The chicken coop has something like a batting cage over it to give the poultry room to run around in, so they can eat real bugs off real dirt, though right now they’re all lounging in the shade at the side of the coop.   The porch has turned into a patio, paved with whorls of patterned brick, tin roof ending in a grape arbour; the whole area is fenced and shaded with a slightly ramshackle collection of cinderblock planters and lattice fencing.  There’s a garden shed in the back, and a toolshed over the cap on the well.  The lone tree has been joined by three juniors of the same scraggly type, and then a concentric ring of flat squashy cactuses Luis says are called _nopales_ that he swears they actually eat.

Luis shows it off with this kind of self-effacing _here’s the crap I waste my time on when I’m unemployed_ way.  He apologizes for the heat and offers to take Kent inside where it’s air-conditioned twice before they’re done looking around.

“But this is _awesome,_ ” Kent says, wiping sweat off his forehead.  Some of the chickens have weird puffs of feathers growing right out of the sides from their heads, and Luis has apologetically informed him that they’re a breed from Chile that lays green eggs, and the tufted gene is lethal if passed on from both parents.  He looks at Luis with a small amount of bewilderment.  "How do you not think your place is awesome?“

He looks the question so long at Luis that Luis eventually has to smile, look around himself, and say, “Thanks.”  Then he begins to disclaim credit, pointing out the plants Maida tended, the artwork and statuary their friends did, and Kent lets himself be led inside, where he can choose between the iced rooibos tea Luis’s girlfriend is drinking and small-batch craft beer Luis is sampling for his bartending job.

“I think you guys are basically the coolest people ever,” Kent says, sitting on the sofa with his feet tangled up with Luis’s.

Maida tilts her head sardonically, accepting the praise with a little theatrical sketch of a bow.  She and Kent get each other’s style of hyperbole and humour.

“I don’t know,” Luis says, picking at the label on his beer.  "I don’t think I’m that interesting.“

Kent snorts, then blows a raspberry.  "Have you looked around lately?”

“I’m surrounded by interesting people,” Luis protests.  "That’s not a part of _me._  It goes on around me.  I’m like… grout in a mosaic.  Everyone else is all colourful and interesting and shiny, and I’m like the mud that they’re stuck in.“

"The glue that holds them together,” Maida says in an undertone.

Kent toasts her with his beer.  "Like, not even, though,“ he says.  "You do magic, you play guitar, you write music–”

“Fucking… overcomplicated things that only six people like,” Luis mutters.

“Luis,” Maida says indulgently, “You can be too interesting, or not interesting enough.  You cannot be both.”

“Not the kind of interesting people _like_ ,” Luis mutters even more quietly into his beer.

Kent and Maida share a look of mutually pained understanding, and Kent kicks Luis’s shin with his bare foot.  ” _I_ like you,“ he says.

“Hey Luis,” Maida stage-whispers, “I think that guy’s into you.”

Kent always had this hazy idea that polyamory and orgies were kind of synonymous, like: if you’re all in a relationship with each other, and you’re all having sex with each other, then obviously these things happen _simultaneously._  But although Maida wolf-whistles when Kent climbs up the couch and the length of Luis’s body to kiss him, she refills her glass of iced tea as they make out, and when Luis, eyes dark with desire, asks Kent if he wants to move into the bedroom, he gets up, rucks his pants up a little, and goes down to drop a kiss on Maida’s lips where she’s curled up next to the stereo system, reading a book and with her earbuds already plugged in to the turntable.  Kent kisses her too, still slightly unsure what her plans for the night is, but she kisses him chastely, says, “Have fun,” and slaps his ass.  Then she puts her earbud back in.

And Luis pulls Kent to the bedroom by the hand.

Luis has sex with Kent like Kent’s _important_ , like he’s interesting, like the tiniest signs Kent drops of liking or not-liking someone are clues to be followed up with Sherlock Holmes-like attention to detail.  However, he’s obviously a little bit put out that Kent’s stolen his “figure out what the other person wants and do that” routine.

“Yeah, but do you _want_ to or not,” Kent asks, the third time Luis has pushed Kent’s hand away from his dick and said, ‘It’s not important.’  "Because I do, unless you actually _don’t_ want me to.“

"If–if you–” Luis says, pressing his forehead to Kent’s cheek, “want to.”

Kent trails his hand up Luis’s arm, nuzzles his lips on the shell of Luis’s ear.  "What I want,“ he murmurs, "is to do something that will take the top of your head off.  What do you think would do that?”

“I–I’m–” Luis says shakily.  "Not really sure.“

Kent goes back to what worked before, kissing and nipping his way down Luis’s neck.  "How would you object to a little trial-and-error?”

“Not at all,” Luis laughs breathlessly, and this time doesn’t object when Kent crawls over him, straddling his hips, and begins methodically to coax whimpers out of him.


End file.
